[Pkg-scicomp-devel] Bug#525023: libcv-dev: circular dependency with libcvaux-dev and libhighgui-dev

[Filippo Giunchedi]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 05:28:06PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> Package: libcv-dev
> Version: 1.0.0-6.1+b1
> Severity: important
> 
> Hello Debian Scientific Computing Team,
> 
> There is a circular dependency between libcv-dev, libcvaux-dev and libhighgui-dev:
> 
> libcv-dev 	:Depends: libcvaux-dev (= 1.0.0-6.1+b1), libhighgui-dev (= 1.0.0-6.1+b1)
> libcvaux-dev 	:Depends: libcv-dev (>= 1.0.0-6.1+b1)
> libhighgui-dev 	:Depends: libcv-dev (>= 1.0.0-6.1+b1)
> 
> Circular dependencies are known to cause problems during upgrade, so we
> should try to get rid of them.
> 
> In this particular case I do not see the point to have three separated 
> packages if users are required to install them all anyway. A single
> package would be sufficient. 

I'm not convinced by the fix (though I'm not reopening the bug).
Both highgui and cvaux are marked by pkg-config as required for linking
opencv:

$ pkg-config --libs opencv
-lcv -lhighgui -lcvaux -lml -lcxcore

so I'm expecting that declaring build-depend: libcv-dev will drag in also the
required libraries for linking.
Moreover, an application is supposed to #include <cv.h> only and thus
shouldn't need to know that libhighgui-dev and libcvaux-dev are required to do
the actual link but only libcv-dev.

thanks,
filippo
-- 
Filippo Giunchedi - http://esaurito.net - 0x6B79D401

In God we trust, everybody else pays cash.
-- somewhere in England